A typical electronic cabinet includes a frame, chassis (e.g., housings, card cages, etc.) that mount to the frame to support electronic equipment (e.g., general purpose computer equipment, equipment for a data storage system, network equipment, etc.), and panels (e.g., side panels, doors, front panels, etc.) that attach to the frame to protect the electronic equipment. Some electronic cabinets are available in standard sizes such as a 19-inch equipment rack which enables attachment of standard-sized 19-inch chassis in a vertically-tiered manner within an interior cavity defined by the frame.
One conventional electronic cabinet includes a chassis that mounts onto a set of sliding rails (e.g., guide rollers) fastened to the cabinet frame to enable the chassis to slide out the front of the cabinet from the interior cavity, and back into the interior cavity. Such a cabinet provides convenient access to the electronic equipment housed within the chassis. For example, a technician performing a maintenance or upgrade procedure can easily pull the chassis out of the interior cavity in order to probe or replace particular circuitry supported by the chassis, and subsequently push the chassis back into the interior cavity when the procedure is complete.
For the above-described conventional electronic cabinet, cables (e.g., wires carrying data signals and power supply signals, fiber optic cables carrying fiber optic signals, etc.) typically reside at the back of the cabinet. In particular, the cables typically extend toward the back of the chassis from other areas of the electronic cabinet (e.g., from power supplies or power buses, from other chassis, from external locations, etc.).
To prevent tangling and uncontrolled movement of the cables, the above-described electronic cabinet includes a metallic cable carrier which restricts movement of the cables when the technician slides the chassis into and out of the cabinet frame. The metallic cable carrier includes a series of metallic beams and metallic hinges that extends from a location on the cabinet frame to a location on the slidable chassis. The metallic cable carrier further includes individual clips which attach to the metallic beams and which hold the cables onto the metallic beams. When adding a new cable to the metallic cable carrier, the technician opens each clip, inserts a portion of the new cable into that clip, and closes that clip to secure that portion of the new cable to the carrier.
When the technician slides the chassis out of the cabinet frame, the metallic cable carrier elongates and thus moves the cables from contracted positions to straightened-out positions in a smooth and orderly manner that allows the cables to remain connected the electronic equipment within the chassis. In particular, the metallic beams pivot about the metallic hinges within a common vertical plane to provide controlled and organized movement of the cables thus minimizing the chance of unnecessarily stressing the cables in a manner that would result in cable disconnection or perhaps result in damage to the cables. When the technician slides the chassis back into the interior cavity, the metallic cable carrier folds up thus returning the cables back to their original contracted positions.